Monday, October 30, 2017

I was kind of hoping this would open with normal-sized Ray breaking this guy's jaw.


This is one of a fistful of older, moderately binged-up books I got in Florida: from 1964, the Atom #11, "Trouble at the Ten-Year Club!" Written by Gardner Fox, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Murphy Anderson.

At a tenth-anniversary meeting with some other Ivy University graduates, Ray Palmer discovers one, a Jack Archer, had gone on to a ten year Master's program of crime. Breaking into a locked room of exhibits, Archer manhandles two guards easily, then sprints away like an Olympian. Later, he's able to hit the Atom twice, before enlarging him with a magnifying glass, and punching him some more! Still, the Atom quickly realizes there is more--or rather less--here than meets the eye.

Also this issue: "Voyage to Beyond!" (Written by Gardner Fox, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Sid Greene.) On a cruise across the equator, all of the passengers besides Ray seem to disappear for a moment. Then, during a costume "walk the plank" party, Jean Loring walks Ray off the plank for real, leaving him to die in the south Atlantic! Well, this bit of craziness can't be laid on Jean's head this time; she and the other passengers were replaced by extra-dimensional alien invaders, as happened almost constantly in the sixties in the DC Universe. The Atom chases them away by acting like a "gremlin," making noise, dropping chandeliers on them, and so on.

And for a book about a tiny guy, there was a pretty fair-sized Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation...that actually didn't have any circulation numbers. Huh. Well, there was also a "Christmas In Many Lands!" quiz and "What's the Difference Between..." Maybe those are more educational.

2 comments:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

That last educational bit really IS educational. You'd be surprised by the amount of people that can't tell the difference between the three.

As for that voyage story....Damn, Ray and Jean were sure into some kinky shit. No wonder she went nuts;)

SallyP said...

Oh Jean... one of my favorite evil girlfriends... closely followed by Carol Ferris and Iris West.